Engineering BOM management terms

The terms explained in this topic help you manage your bill of materials (BOM) data.

Term	Refers to
Design	The virtual representation of a part. It represents what a part will look like in its floor position. For example, represents a wheel. Designs are attached to design revisions in Teamcenter.
Part	This is the primary component of a product. For example, the product CrossKart consists of different parts such as Wheel, Engine, and Chassis. Each part is saved as a part revision in Teamcenter.

Part types

A part can be of the following types:

Type	Refers to
Generic part	A placeholder part that cannot be ordered or procured, or assembled in a product. It has variability associated with it. It is used in a configurable assembly and is replaced with a specific part when a 100% product variant is derived. You can add child parts to a generic part but they neither participate in alignment process nor corresponding manufacturing BOM creation.
Configurable assembly	An assembly part that has variability associated with its child parts. A configurable assembly can contain other configurable assemblies and generic parts.
Supplier Part	A supplier part is an assembly that is defined in the design structure. It can contain parts and subassemblies. It is purchased as a complete or whole assembly. The terms piece part, bought out part, purchased assembly, and foreign part are synonyms for supplier part. You can add child parts to a supplier part. The supplier part participates in the alignment process but not in the corresponding manufacturing BOM creation. You can add a spare part as a child to a supplier part.
Alternate part	A part that can be used in place of another part in all products.
Substitute part	A part that can be used in place of an occurrence of another part within a single assembly.
Flexible part	A part that can be used in a product in various states. Examples include a coil spring, hose pipe, and wire harness.
Bought out part	A part that is purchased and not manufactured in-house.

Structure terms

Term	Refers to
Engineering BOM	Refers to the structure that is a Usage BOM and an Assembly BOM structure.
Usage BOM	A 150% BOM that represents the complete content of a product and its variants, if available. This 150% BOM uses item revisions and occurrences, called collaborative part and part usages. The part usages have independent lifecyle and change control. The part usages in a Usage BOM can be revised and released independently of the parent assembly.
Part Usage	The usage of a part in a Usage BOM.
Part structure (Assembly BOM)	An Assembly BOM is a BOM structure that is based on occurrence in which an assembly owns the lifecycle of the occurrence of the child parts.
Part occurrence	An instance of a part in an Assembly BOM. For example, the wheel assembly contains the part occurrences of Tire, Rim, and Valve.
Partition	A container to logically organize the engineering BOM data.
Design structure	A design structure of a product to represent it virtually from a geometrical standpoint. It consists of designs, which contain the design information such as CAD and product manufacturing information (PMI).
Design occurrence	An occurrence of a design in a design structure. A design occurrence contains the position information of a part. For example, the design occurrence of a wheel contains the information related to its placement in Crosskart.
Design-part alignment	The alignment between a design and a part. It shows what a part will look like in its floor position.
Design occurrence-part occurrence alignment	The alignment between a design occurrence and a part occurrence. It shows what a part will look like when placed in a product.
Design-Usage BOM link	This is the link between a design structure and its corresponding Usage BOM.
Solution variant	A 100% buildable BOM with unique part numbers.